FIRST TIES FOR ISRAEL AND THE VATICAN

Israel and the Vatican put 46 years of stony silence behind them by establishing full diplomatic relations today. The ground-breaking agreement, cemented last Dec. 31, signals a reconciliation with Jews led by Pope John Paul II, whose native Poland witnessed many of the atrocities of the Holocaust. Vatican sources told TIME Rome bureau chief John Moody that the announcement was likely held back almost two months as the Pontiff waited for recent Mideast unrest to subside: "The final part of the negotiations was a bit harder than anybody had anticipated."

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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